Wednesday, December 25, 2013

The Christmas Cactus in the Kitchen Window.***After celebrating my general health in my holiday letter written at Thanksgiving, and emailed, mailed, and given it to many of my neighbors in December, I was advised on Saturday, December 21, to go to my UNC Hospital’s Emergency Room in case I was having stroke symptoms. It was hard to believe it could be a stroke or related to one, but when I called the nurse advice line, she said go, so I dragged my good neighbor out of bed, and she took me to the ER. I was there in the ER from 9 AM to nearly 5 PM. They had me plugged into all these monitors, heart, oxygen in blood, blood pressure, etc. Finally we were waiting for a bed in the neurology ward, as I had agreed to stay overnight for tests, in case my arm going numb might lead to a stroke. At 5 PM I was taken for my first MRI. Before that I had to answer a bunch of questions. Was I pregnant? No. Did I have any metal implants? No. Only gold in my teeth, which was okay. The machine apparently is magnetic and pulls the metal toward it. Was I claustrophobic? I didn’t think so, but I knew the machine could set it off, so I said Yes. The nurse said I could have a sedative. I didn’t want that, so I changed my answer to No. All my answers were NO. The MRI technicians were kind and thoughtful. My granddaughter, who has been studying Health Science, knew more than I did about TIAs (or mini-strokes). She suggested while I was in the tube that I count my blessings, and my daughter said she does that, too, when things are hard. It was definitely noisy in there. I had a bulb I could squeeze for them to stop, and I only had to squeeze it once, when the IV leaked. I had earplugs and washcloths over my ears. I thought about all the good things in my life, and there are many: my children and grandchildren, my farm, my fifteen chickens, and my dog; my orchard, vegetable garden, and flowers, my friends, my health, which is basically good, my published books, my ability to create. Then I thought: what am I going do about my next novel, in which some of my characters go back to Wales in 2013 for Christmas. Two other books, neither yet published, have been set on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. My Welsh characters have aged–how old are they now? What happens there at Christmas–I usually have been there in the summer. Snow? Boxing Day, A Christmas feast. Caroling? I have to do more research. It helped a lot to pass the time working on that novel during the hour-long MRI.Then I was taken to my hospital room. I thought I’d be home by lunchtime the next day, and then I’d post my blog on Sunday, as I usually do. I didn’t sleep very well or very long. My bed moved under me–to prevent bed sores? They wouldn’t turn it off. I tried pretending I was in a boat, but that didn’t work very well. Still I did sleep, despite noises in the hall until they came to move the patient in the other bed, bed and all, to the Emergency Room. She was very sick and wasn’t supposed to get out of bed at all, but she apparently tried to get up and fell (there was a bed alarm, so they ran in, got her back in bed, but they were having trouble keeping up with her). So when they returned at midnight to move her bed, they had to move mine, too. On Sunday they set my bed alarm, too, though the night shift nurses had allowed me to walk three feet to the bathroom, but not the day nurse. She was afraid I’d fall. The bed alarm is loud and penetrating, and causes the nurses to come running. I said I was drinking plenty of fluids, and needed to pee about every hour. My words fell on deaf ears, though I persuaded some nurses to trust me three feet. I hated to bother them when there were so many patients sicker than I was.Everything is slower on Sunday, so after awhile it was clear I wasn’t going home Sunday. I wrote the poem below; I talked to nurses and nurse assistants whenever possible; I had a few phone calls. I kept my diary. I don’t like TV and I’d read my one book, so I wrote and wrote. The wise and funny ER nurse had given me a bunch of paper. I did have some more left arm episodes Sunday AM, and I was glad I was there. They finally told me I had “sensory seizures.” They wanted an EEG (checking the brain waves by putting electrodes on my head). That technician works at night, which surprised me. She woke me up at 9:45 PM, explained the test, and got me talking about everything, even killing chickens, while she decorated my hair with electrodes. Afterward she told me for my age I had a very good brain, with lots of background activity. As it turned out the EEG showed nothing to suggest my seizures. Everything looked normal. The earlier EKG of my heart had also been normal. Their only scientific evidence that something was wrong was that little blood spot from the MRI. They wanted to do a test where they inject dye into the blood vessels of the brain, but I said no, absolutely not. I also didn’t want to take any anti-seizure medicine. That sounded worse than the disease. Some of the side-effects are dizziness and losing your balance, and there are worse ones. I kept saying, I’ve never had regular prescription drugs. I think my brain will heal itself. This did not fly.My attitude became part scientific curiosity (with a limit–I had no desire to learn, as the doctors did, what exactly caused that spot of blood in the wrong place). But my people curiosity was going strong about everyone: nurses, doctors, people bringing me food from the “restaurant,” the technicians, etc. I told the team of doctors (UNC is a teaching hospital–no telling what the learning doctors got out of Judy’s passive resistance. No, maybe that was active resistance.) I said they could be my consultants, but I was going to decide what I’d accept of their advice. I insisted on having the least possible medical intervention.The last big doctor confab on Monday morning led to a big argument about my taking an anti-seizure medicine. I argued no, and they argued that the DMV doesn’t allow seizure people to drive. I had to stop driving in any case until I was free of my little numbness episodes. The medicine with its terrible side-effects they insisted on, but I compromised on a very low dose, and my immediate doctor, the resident, promised to do everything she could to get me back to normal and she would contact my regular wonderful primary care doctor who has helped me stay healthy and free of prescription drugs for twenty-five years. I haven’t had any episodes since I got home, 48 hours ago, as I write this on Christmas Day. My daughter helped me get the drug, some groceries, and came with her kids Christmas Eve to celebrate Christmas. One friend said to look for the silver lining. She works in a cardiac intensive care unit. She says there’s always a silver lining. I feel good actually and hopeful that my basically healthy, normal body will get me through this, and people are already offering help in many ways, plus the county has transportation for people like me to get to doctor visits. I’m taking my time, but I’m getting back up to my normal lifestyle slowly, except for driving. People will have to visit me. I am especially grateful to the nurses and nurse assistants on the neurology ward. They were beyond wonderful. I gave out bookmarks and some are even buying my new book, Farm Fresh and Fatal. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays whatever you celebrate. Now here's the hospital poem written on Sunday, too.***A THREAD OF LIGHT XIV.December 22, 2013For all the nurses at UNC Hospital’s Neurological WardAt home the Christmas cactus bloomsin the kitchen window without me there to tell it how beautiful it is. Lately, when I’ve stopped to look, I’ve reminded myself how much beauty there is in the world. At home Wag lives day and night in the backyard,and Emma feeds her out of pansshe finds in the cupboard, not recognizingthe pan in the bathroom as Wag’sfood dish. Wag feels deserted,probably trying not to eat. She doesthat while she waits for me to comehome. At home no one checks the email, no one explains why Judy isn’tanswering her phone, her door, or heremail. No one picks up her mail.More Christmas cards? Maybe onemore package? The hens go in andout, eating, laying, squabbling, butthey miss the apple cores and chickweed I carry them, the scratchgrains I scatter outside their chickendoor. Here in the mammoth hospitalon the sixth floor neurological ward,I wait for the next test, the next doctorvisit, or my need to pee so I have anexcuse to call the nurse to watchwhile I walk three feet to the bathroom.I long to walk, but they say I must have someone with me, and the nursesare so busy they speed-walk from one patient to the next. I took theaspirin they brought me but refusedthe blood thinner prescribed becauseI’m in bed so much. I fussed at thedoctors. “This is a vicious circle. I want to walk, and they won’t let me, and then you want to give memedicine because I’m not walking.”Then the big-honcho doctors said, “We’ll take it off your chart. You can walk.” Here the nursesmake it all work. Caught betweenthe patients and the doctors who stand at a celestial height and keepasking me if I fell, if I hurt my head.I keep saying, no, no, not for overa year, but they can’t explain a spotof blood in the brain that is coordinatedwith where I’m having numbness,which they call now sensory seizures.I make the nurses laugh. We talk about Russia or their young daughterswho love to read and write. Theybring me paper and hug me. I givethem bookmarks, which delightsthem, though they can already seeI’m a writer because that’s all I do.I’m writing the story of the hospital’sneurology ward. So many nationalities of women and men care for me,from Germany, Armenia, the MiddleEast, Japan, Kenya. I tell them I fellon the ice several times in Finlandand Russia in ninety-five and ninety-six,but no, my blood spot isn’t that old.They’ve taken blood and urine, picturesof my brain, and studied the MRI images.They’re measuring blood pressure andoxygen, and temperature often. Thelast blood pressure reading was one-twenty-four over sixty-one–the bestI’ve had in years. “But, no, you can’twalk three feet alone in case you fall.”One nurse assistant promises to return after ten more blood pressures of other patients, walk with me and tell me more abouther daughters who read and make upstories, as I do--waiting, waiting togo home to Wag, my hens, and mybeautiful pink Christmas cactus inthe kitchen window. Judy Hogan***

Sunday, December 15, 2013

***All the drawings, including the cover, are by Mikhail Bazankov for the first, Russian edition of Beaver Soul in 1997.***

Since I’ve had only one recent comment about Beaver Soul, I thought I’d share some stories from that same summer of 1992, when I wrote most of it.Thanks, first, to Gary Tyson, who wrote in an email of 11-26-13:Judy, just had the opportunity to read the poems in Beaver Soul. The poems reach depths that can only be reached through the eyes of your own soul. With words as powerful as the Proverbs of King Solomon you truly took the reader to a new place that was a little frightening, but once you got there, you knew you belonged. Thanks so much for sharing your journey.***My first journey to Russia as part of a Sister Cities exchange between Durham and Kostroma was in early August,1990. I was in Kostroma only six days. I quickly realized that I needed to learn Russian, and beginning in 1991, I did study Russian with several tutors, primarily for basic conversation, but also so I could write letters to my new friends, who, for the most part, didn’t know English. Their foreign language in school had been German. I also learned to read Russian, with a dictionary. By 1992, Mikhail Bazankov, who was working with me on the writer exchanges, had visited Durham and Saxapahaw, where I lived. We had interpreters for programs, but often I was his only source of information–in Russian. He learned to speak child’s Russian to me, and I learned, that if I could start a sentence, even if I couldn’t remember the proper endings for the nouns and verbs, that he often caught my meaning and finished the sentence.

Driving through the Smoky Mountains I took him to visit the mother of a poet I had published, Amon Liner, who had died in 1976, the same day my new press, Carolina Wren, published his book Chrome Grass. In June 1992 we had lunch with Amon’s mother and sister, and when we left, Mikhail asked me where Amon was. Apparently our conversation had suggested to him that Amon was still alive. I didn’t know the word for dead, and I was driving, so I waited until we got to a rest stop and looked it up in my dictionary. Poets do live a long time, see?The summer of 1992, during my visit to the Kostroma Region, during regular programs, there again were interpreters, but when I went with Mikhail into the countryside around Sharya, where he had lived for many years, several hundred miles from Kostroma, we again depended on my Russian in informal gatherings.I learned that summer that the Russians gave great value to “meetings,” both first meetings and any meetings after some time had passed. I also learned that meetings usually involved a lot of food–many courses–plus a lot of vodka and wine–and many toasts.

Soon after my arrival in Sharya, Mikhail took me, with the Sharya District’s chief administrator, Vera, to meet people in a small village nearby. We were taken to the home of a priest. In 1991, many Americans sent clothes, food, medicine to the Russians, as it was a difficult year, and I think our federal government also sent food. The villagers wanted to thank me. I was their American, and so they prepared a huge feast, and about twenty of us were seated around a large table. I was given vodka and was sipping it, when an older woman, who seemed to have the role of a church elder, one of those strong women in any church who make sure everything goes the way it should. My minister father found them hard, he once admitted. She was emphatic, with gestures, that I wasn’t drinking my vodka correctly. I was to drink it bottoms up. She was angry. Later I learned that not drinking vodka bottoms up was believed to bring bad luck. I simply couldn’t do it, and she frowned for the rest of the visit. Nor could I eat adequately of the huge feast. Dishes kept arriving, and I was supposed to eat some of all of them. I did my best.Mikhail’s wife, Katya, had given me a “big breakfast for the road.” This lunch feast began about eleven o’clock and lasted a couple of hours.

Then Vera took us to another village and another dinner. By now it was around two o’clock. There were also dancers and music. I admitted to Vera that I couldn’t possibly eat for awhile, and unlike the fierce village woman, Vera accepted this and said we could take a walk. On the walk I learned to hug trees. Vera showed me her special tree. So I hugged a tree. It’s a good way to calm down actually. I still do it sometimes. Eventually we did eat, and I ate as little as possible, and I was able to take only a tiny amount in my vodka glass, so I could drink it bottoms up. Then we went home to Mikhail’s son’s wife’s parents’ place. They also had prepared a huge feast in my honor. They were even more understanding, and we again walked around. I could admire how much food they managed to grow, including fruit trees, on a very small plot of land. I can’t say I ate much, but I was learning that when you think the dishes have stopped coming, more will come. Those were the appetizers. Now here comes the main dish.

We then traveled to Katya’s home village, Gorka, and her brother’s home. I enjoyed being in the village. They wouldn’t let me do any work, but I ranged nearby and wrote some poems watching the small Mezha River pass by (See Beaver Soul 23). I talked to an elderly woman in my simple Russian, and she understood me and also spoke simply. She thought life would be better in America, and I told her no. She had a good life, with the natural world around her. The village was surrounded by forest, and the women went into it to pick raspberries (See Beaver Soul 24). She admitted she loved the preroda–the natural world. Why did I tell her she had it better where she was? Few Americans form the bonds with others that most Russians have with their families and friends. We focus a lot here on being independent and self-sufficient. A Russian can get very lonely here. Some Americans open themselves to other people and to the natural world around them and give wonderful support to each other, but it’s rarer and rarer.

Then Mikhail took me, Katya, and their son Aleksei for a “meeting” with the Mezha District administrators, and they took us deep into the taiga or wild forest, in the area where Mikhail was born, to the place where his rodina (birthplace, very important in Russian culture) had once been. The village was gone–many such villages were lost because of the loss of men during World War II (25 million) and because of the collectivization of the villages in the 20s and 30s)–but we came to the hills above the Black River. They asked me if I was afraid of bears, as the wild forest held many wild animals. This was a hunting lodge. I said, “No, you’ll protect me.” So another feast began, this one lasting from late morning until nearly dark, and many toasts, and many bottles of wine. I took only a little, and I did my best to make toasts. These administrators were very flirtatious. They all wanted to dance with me. 1992 I was fifty-five, the age when a Russian woman becomes a pensioner. They also wanted to get me drunk. I don’t like to get drunk. I tried it once in my twenties. So I was trying not to drink, and Mikhail was no help. His solution was to pour the drink down my sleeve, which didn’t appeal. So they were pretty pushy, and finally I said that they could probably get Russian women to do what they wanted, but I was an American. Of course they redoubled their efforts to get me drunk, and they succeeded by the end of the day.

Then we drove back to the main town of the district where they lived, but on the road they all stopped after we crossed a stream, and they said that under this bridge was a beaver, and I had to look and see the beaver. I knew I could not bend over in my drunken state or I would fall into the river, so I refused. They said they’d hold me, but by this time I didn’t trust any of them, including Mikhail. They nagged. Finally I sat down and wouldn’t move. So finally they gave up, or they realized that enough was enough. So then we went into a forest clearing, and we stood around a campfire they built, and they finished the bottles left. They didn’t press me any more after that. Perhaps they were worried by this time. Somehow the conversation turned to love, and I said, “You don’t have to get drunk to love somebody,” and I assured them that I loved them. I have no idea what they thought of this Amerikanka who was so difficult both sober and drunk. It’s a story I love to tell though, whatever that means.

Now, gentle readers, how about some more comments from those of you who have read Beaver Soul? It does my soul good to hear what readers think. Please? Judy Hogan

Sunday, December 8, 2013

New Billboard displayed on US Highway #1, heading north just inside Lee County, past the Cameron exit. This is what fracking looks like. The green pool is the hazardous waste water. MORE INFO ON DANGERS OF FRACKING [Updated Dec 5, 2013]Hi, all, I attended the Democratic Women’s Meeting March 17, 2013, at the Chatham Library and learned many disturbing facts.1. I had wondered exactly where the fracking companies would get their water. They need three to five million gallons of our drinking water for each well they put down. They can’t get it from our water department, from Jordan Lake or from Lee County (Sanford), where Southeast Chatham still gets ours. Instead they buy riparian rights from those who live along streams and rivers, and put their pipes in there, so they get our water before we have a chance to. There are insufficient regulations about people taking water out of streams. They may not bother to ask.2. One of their big problems, and hence ours, is how they handle the waste water poisoned by chemicals which are cancer-causing and birth defect-causing–millions of gallons of that waste water, too, which often brings with it to the surface heavy minerals and radioactive materials. Sometimes they drill new holes and put it back into the earth. They apparently can’t do that here in Lee and Chatham, so there is talk in the legislature of hauling it to the coast and doing it there. Fortunately, this caused a rift in the NC House, where the newest fracking bill was still being debated, as the coastal reps don’t want it there. This issue is still not decided, but the Coast Guard is considering letting fracking fluid be shipped down major rivers and then what? Dumped in the sea? And if it spills? Millions lose their drinking water.Deep drilling in other states has set off earthquakes, too, if the original drilling does not. From the Pennsylvania experience (The Marcellus Shale, a very large deposit of methane gas, whereas we have only a small deposit), the companies often simply pour waste water into streams, or bulldoze dirt over the waste pools they’ve created and leave it. Under the earth it can easily get into our water table. In fact, right here in our Triassic Basin the gas is not very far below the surface, and only 1000 feet are between the gas and the water table, and in one place, they’re together. Our gas deposits also go under Jordan Lake.3. Yes, fracking near Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant is dangerous. The plant was built on the assumption that the rock under it would not be moved or disturbed. The area where they want to drill is right on the earthquake fault, and about five miles from Shearon Harris. I know from past work for safer nuclear storage, that the biggest danger at Shearon Harris is loss of water to cool both reactor and storage pools, causing a nuclear waste storage pool fire, which could ruin all of central NC and affect two million people. Imagine the nightmare of trying to evacuate all those people and their cars from the Triangle area.4. The fracking companies don’t use Eminent Domain to go under or over people’s property who haven’t signed away mineral rights. They use state police. They call it Compulsory Pooling. If they have 90% of the leases they need in an area, per the rules they’ve developed so far, they can force the other landowners to sell them mineral rights. The best option, should it come to fracking becoming legal in the NC Legislature, i.e. the present moratorium lifted in 2015, is for towns, counties, and municipalities to outlaw it or do their own moratorium. The companies can bypass this, but they will have to sue the towns, etc., and that will get it into court, the only way apparently to get it into court, and that works. Here’s a link to a NY town that is fighting fracking. One suing company turned it over to another company, which then went bankrupt. We can hope. Meantime, we need to gather citizen support against any fracking in N.C.http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/the-story-of-dryden-the-town-that-fought-fracking-and-is-winning?utm_source=ConvioAlso The Board of Commissioners in Anson County, south of Chatham, Lee, and Moore, since I first wrote this last spring, unanimously voted a moratorium on fracking for five years, and legal experts believe it can be defended well in court.5. We learned in the N&O that the gas pipeline which goes through NC from Mexico to New England, is going to be reversed in direction in 2015, the time when the drilling here could start. Then the Marcellus natural gas will come south. Some may see this as a solution. Unfortunately, the NC Legislature, told about this some weeks ago by Senator Ellie Kinnaird during the Senate debate, ignored it. The N&O had an article about it, saying “NC would be awash in gas.” I learned more from John Wagner, who works with a Chatham study group on this fracking issue and its science. Here’s what John said: "You are right, it doesn't sound good. We don't want to provide a market for Marcellus-fracked gas, and get hooked into all the natural gas infrastructure for natural gas power plants, buses, and cars. It seems like a cheap energy source now, but it is guaranteed to go up in price and then the state would be tied for decades to a very bad greenhouse gas producing fossil fuel based energy instead of renewable energy.“Another immediate problem with getting Marcellus methane is that it is very high in radon. Especially for indoor flames-such as cooking stoves-this pumps radon directly into your kitchen and home. This is a real issue, and although the science is there to document the presence of the radon, and the statistics have been produced to show the increase in cancer rates expected from the radon, it is almost totally ignored in the media. The radon is less of an issue with some of the other fracked natural gas sources, but due to the geology of the Marcellus, it is a very serious issue there.”6. I learned from another organization that potentially NC has enough wind power to provide energy for all the Atlantic Coast states, a sustainable source, doesn’t hurt us or our farms or our water. It would employ people in larger numbers. The fracking proponents say they will bring jobs–but the best estimate is less than 300, probably not the high-paying ones, and many would come already employed from elsewhere. Also NC ranks fourth in solar energy. Senator Kinnaird points out that China has solar panels on millions of roofs. Getting our energy from panels on roofs would also employ plenty of people locally, and we’ve made a good start with solar here in NC.7. Right now (early Dec 2013) the Mining and Energy Commission is still debating about whether to release information about the chemicals in the fracking fluid. Some want to; some say it should all remain a trade secret. If people get sick from air, water, or earth pollution, doctors need to know what chemicals they've been exposed to. The drilling companies have been reluctant to release this information before people get sick and even after they do. They also have paid people in Pennsylvania not to talk about their health problems. See Gasland II for examples of this!Contact Elaine Chiosso of Haw River Assembly for more info on everything here: info@hawriver.org She presented many of these facts, along with a film made by Chatham folks in Pennsylvania. The facts are scary, but Elaine is firm that we can do this, keep the fracking companies out of NC. 8. Between March and December, I also learned of many accidents with drilling sites, transportation. One fire from a broken pipeline for liquid gas (LNG) has been burning in Alabama for weeks. Regular frack updates are available from FrackFreeNC.org, and the billboard at the top of the blog was put up not long ago on Highway #1, just inside Lee County after the Cameron exit. Many people and organizations are working to keep it out of our state.In Pennsylvania, where so much fracking occurred, and many people lost their water, their farming income, saw their children and livestock getting sick, they used to have high income from tourism, dairy products, and many other related things, $392 billion; fracking income has been $22 billion, but tourism, dairy, and many other things were ruined in the process.Fracking is protected from EPA Clean water and clean air standards, and both water and air are being polluted by fracking. The Texas company that was going to send thumper trucks to do seismic testing in Lee, Chatham, and Moore, has delayed that, and they’re studying our geology, which is terrible for fracking between the earthquake Jonesboro fault, and the many underground fissures left by coal-mining. So far only Lee County has mineral rights leases, but they have many in Lee, and Lee is a small county. 10. Personally, this hits home for me. If fracking comes to my neighbor Lee, I’ll have to leave my little farm, which is half a mile from Lee County and the Deep River between us. I wanted to live here the rest of my life, but I won’t stay to be made sick and/or die because the air, water, and land are polluted. I’ll fight as long as possible first. Sadly, I’m not the only one whose life will be ruined.Our water is at risk for all of us, and our agriculture, our tourism which brings people to NC for its beauty, its mountains, Piedmont, beaches. Do we really want to invite in an industrial landscape, with constant traffic of heavy equipment, trucks bearing chemicals and gas, fires where they burn off gas, methane leaks, gas into the ground water, chemical spills? And it adds to greenhouse gases. It speeds up climate change. Methane is worse than carbon dioxide for that. As one of the Pennsylvania dairy farmers said at the frack free forum in June, “Think of your treasures.” For me it’s my friends, family, neighbors, this little community of Moncure where I feel at home, and my garden, orchard, chickens, my quiet healthy life farming and writing. So I fight! If you haven’t seen Gasland II, by Josh Fox, do. The newest twist is that Homeland Security is being involved by the fracking industry to spy on fracktivists like me, activists who are fighting fracking. Is this the life we want in our country in the 21st century?Judy Hogan

I began writing at age 6, won all the English prizes at school, studied English literature and art history in college, never graduated because I found a job on a newspaper and jumped ship from the University of Portsmouth, UK. The job was not exactly my dream as a reporter but I was thrilled at 19 to be the general dogsbody in the press room. I was delegated Assistant to the Show Business columnist who took me to many of his interviews with movie stars, i.e. Martin & Lewis, Audrey Hepburn, Tarzan – forget which one. I also opened all the letters for the Agony Columnist (Ann Landers in Brit language), and sent them on to her. I made phone calls to the reporters’ wives to tell them their husbands were working late. I once forgot till midnight, and innocently called. Oh well. Why do I write? Only thing I knew how to do as a child, I had no other skills and devoured all the Agatha Christies. Mysteries became my favorite reading.

2. When and why did you begin writing mysteries?

I began writing my first mystery six years ago while handling a fulltime job as a magazine columnist. Prior to that I had been hired to ghostwrite a true crime book, and the following year, a crime novel for a wealthy lady who’d always wanted her name on a book for her coffee table. Those two books were good training when it came to writing my own mystery. I was living on a small island in Newport Beach, CA, no serious crime ever touched it, and I decided it needed a juicy murder or two. The setting turned out to be perfect.

3. Are you writing a series or a stand-alone? Explain your basic idea for your series.

Am writing a series because my series character, a transplanted Cornish woman named Tosca Trevant, drives the plot and, insatiably curious, she manages to find dead bodies strewn everywhere so she just has to keep going through her books. She writes a gossip column called “Tiara Tittle-Tattle,” about the royals. After discovering a scandal at Buckingham Palace she is rather rudely hustled out of the UK. Appalled at a neighbor’s unkempt garden she digs up more than she bargained for: skeletal remains. It gives her the idea to be promoted to a crime reporter, thus earning her way back home.

4. Tell us about your journey to publication with this book.

I tried to find an agent for DIGGING TOO DEEP and had a few in-person interviews at writers conferences but nothing jelled. They mostly said there were too many mysteries out there, the market was saturated, and that there were too many eBooks. I found a small press, Mainly Murder Press, and fell in love with the name. Figured I’d give it one last shot before going the self-pub route. Their website when I checked it in January said no submissions until late spring. I queried anyway, saying that here in California it is already late spring. MMP responded quickly and asked for the full MS. A week later we signed a contract.

5. Why did you choose to write about the topic, community, issues you chose?

I chose to write about Orange County, Southern California because after moving West from the East Coast I found it a bit of a culture shock and so does my amateur sleuth, a transplanted Brit. She waits anxiously but in vain each day for rain, her brolly and wellies at the ready. My theme is a personal one, that of an immigrant – I am from the UK – trying to make sense of America, trying to fit in, and figuring out the American psyche. I have given Tosca my own passion for this country – after she settles down – and she becomes one of its fiercest advocates. Among her future battles will be scolding disgruntled Brits in the U.S.

6. How have you found it to be published? Share that experience.

Signing a contract with a ‘real’ publisher was exhilarating mostly because the publisher, Judith Ivie, and her editors ‘got’ Tosca. They understand her witty remarks, her curiosity, and her desperation to find a way to be reinstated back home. After the excitement of signing the contract there comes panic at the amount of promotion that needs to be done. With the advent of social media and the Internet, blogging, appearances, presentations, and other ways to create buzz it is so time-consuming to have to handle it all, to say nothing of the occasional freak-out when you mix up emails. Then there is a budget to be found for promotional items like large posters to be printed, an easel to buy, and bookmarks. But then you take a loving look at the book in your hands and realize, it finally came to fruition.

7. Do you have comments from readers or reviewers you’d like to share?

Obviously, the 72 agents I queried didn’t want it, some with comments, others not, nor the other 5 small presses. All my mystery author friends and colleagues enjoyed it, and being a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America provides a deep well of those willing to offer a blurb or comment. Dennis Palumbo wrote: “… a sly, witty cozy with a delightful heroine. The perfect beach read no matter the weather.” Marcia Talley wrote: “…Tosca Trevant is a smart-mouthed Miss Marple in a leather mini-skirt. All signs point to success in her new career.” Sheila Lowe wrote, “A fun, frothy read with an unlikely heroine and the bonus of learning a bit of Cornish, too!” Aileen Baron wrote: “Meet Tosca Trevant, the irrepressible Cornish erstwhile gossip columnist of the royals and an aspiring crime reporter three steps ahead of the police... Let’s hope we hear more…” I am very grateful to all.

Others offered blurbs but we ran out of time. Publication followed very quickly after final proofing. I am sending out review copies over the next couple of months. Most reviewers did not take digital ARCs.

8. What other books have you published and where, when?

I co-authored a biography of Rudy Vallee with his wife, published in 1996, MY VAGABOND LOVER, out of print; a biography of a WWII fighter ace, GUNTHER RALL: LUFTWAFFE ACE AND NATO GENERAL, published in 2002 and now a successful eBook on amazon; I ghostwrote several biographies, a true crime, business books, and a crime novel, mostly published under clients’ names.

9. Do you have a work in progress now? Is it part of a series?

Tosca Trevant is now well entrenched in her new American home although still somewhat puzzled at some American habits. Her next adventure involves the reburial of the ashes of Raymond Chandler’s wife, Cissy, that were added to his grave. I have written about one-quarter of the book so far, title is DIGGING UP SHAMUS.

10. If you belong to Sisters in Crime, and/or the Guppies, has that been helpful? How?

Unbelievably helpful and supportive. The generous sharing of writers’ tips, tears, and joys is amazing and endless. SinC is great for personal networking at the meetings as well as at their other events. I have been a panelist and reader at the meetings.

11. What benefit to you has it been to go to mystery conferences like Malice Domestic?

I’ve only attended Bouchercon, Left Coast Crime, and California Crime Writers Conference. I’ve been a panelist a few times talking about ghosting and writing your first mystery. I am attending LCC, Bouchercon, and Tucson Festival of Books in 2014, and hope to attend Malice in 2014 if the budget allows.

12. What else would like to say about your books, the next one in your series?

I am probably more passionate about Tosca than she is herself. I do a ton of research – DIGGING TOO DEEP has classical music clues, opera, geology, Cornish cusswords, mead, and fun details about the royals, the UK, and other tidbits for Tosca’s “Tiara Tittle-Tattle” column. Who knows -- perhaps she’ll find a Russian prince incognito in California.

***

Jill Amadio was a reporter in England, Spain, and Thailand and a crime reporter in the U.S. Originally from St. Ives, Cornwall, the land of mead and piskies, she has lived on both the East and West Coasts of the United States. She is the author and co-author of several biographies, and a ghostwriter of nonfiction and true crime. Her best-selling biography, Gunther Rall: Luftwaffe Ace and NATO General, is now on kindle and Nook. Jill presently lives in Dana Point, California.

About Me

I write mystery novels, poetry, autobiographical books, reviews and articles. My Hoganvillaea Farm provides about half my food. I sell eggs and figs. My newest book, Grace: A China Diary, 1910-16 came out April 12, 2017. The next Penny Weaver mystery comes out June 1,2017: Political Peaches. Formaldehyde, Rooster (2016, Nuclear Apples? The Third Penny Weaver Mystery, 2016. The Sands of Gower: The First Penny Weaver Mystery (2015), Haw (2016): The Second Penny Weaver Mystery. Killer Frost (2012) and Farm Fresh and Fatal (2013) will be re-published in 2017 This River: An Epic Love Poem came out from Wild Embers Press in 2014. You may order all the books from me, as well as my poetry chapbook Beaver Soul (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and This River:An Epic Love Poem (2014): PO Box 253, Moncure, NC 27559 mysteries cost $16, with postage, $19;Grace costs $28, $30 if mailed. Beaver Soul is $13; $16 if mailed. This River is $15 if picked up, $18 if mailed. My PMZ Poor Woman's Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes for Survival and Health in the Menopausal and Post-Menopausal Years. $10; $13 if mailed. I hold the copyright to all the material on my blog, which I've written.